News & Updates

Monday 1/22:
– CALL Micah from Ed Charbonneau’s office (317-232-9494) and ask for him to schedule SB18 for a hearing! If it’s not scheduled by next week it dies. This is the bill we lobbied for on immunization exemption info!! Don’t let it die!
– EMAIL the Senate Criminal Law committee again asking them to please be sure to include language in SB52 that allows for up to .3% thc. The email block will be in the comments of this post.
-SHOW UP from 8a-9:30a to get flu shot info into the hands of as many House Reps as possible as they walk in for the day. They will be voting on the bill in the afternoon. Melissa Sfura will be there and needs more support so these Reps know that morethan just 1-2 people care about this issue.
– WATCH LIVE @ 10am SB431 in committee which gives immunity to healthcare providers who make reports to CPS for abuse and neglect. Does anyone want to show up and give testimony in opposition to this? https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2018/bills/senate/431
-WATCH LIVE @ 1:30pm as the Full House votes on HB1058 (flu shot bill) and on HR2 which asks for a summer study committee on medical marijuana (we don’t want this to pass).

Tuesday 1/23:
-CALL Micah from Ed Charbonneau’s office (317-232-9494) and ask for him to schedule SB18 for a hearing! If it’s not scheduled by next week it dies. This is the bill we lobbied for on immunization exemption info!! Don’t let it die!
– WATCH LIVE @ 9:30am as the Senate Criminal Law committee votes on SB52 and SB 294 re: CBD oil.

Wednesday 1/24:
-CALL Micah from Ed Charbonneau’s office (317-232-9494) and ask for him to schedule SB18 for a hearing! If it’s not scheduled by next week it dies. This is the bill we lobbied for on immunization exemption info!! Don’t let it die!

Thursday 1/25:
-CALL Micah from Ed Charbonneau’s office (317-232-9494) and ask for him to schedule SB18 for a hearing! If it’s not scheduled by next week it dies. This is the bill we lobbied for on immunization exemption info!! Don’t let it die!

Friday 1/26:
-CALL Micah from Ed Charbonneau’s office (317-232-9494) and ask for him to schedule SB18 for a hearing! If it’s not scheduled by next week it dies. This is the bill we lobbied for on immunization exemption info!! Don’t let it die!

KILL HB1058 RALLY.~ NO FREE ADS for pharma for their liability free product.

STAND WITH ME.

HB1058 wants the State Fund ( where YOUR tax dollars go)
To pay for flu vaccine “‘information” (ADVERTISEMENT) to be given to our sick and elderly living in residential care facilities.

The Authors, Reps Ron Bacon and Karlee Macer want YOU to believe that CDC recommendations are SAFE AND SOUND.

The CDC is corrupt and currently under CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION. There has been 13 CDC Scientists #CDCSpider #CDCWhistleblower that have come forward to declare FRAUD AND CORRUPTION. Their claim is that the CDC has been captured by Industry and can no longer be trusted as a non biased source of information.

All 150 legislators have received information that I had delivered to the mailroom about the LACK of vaccine safety. That was the HHS Vaccine safety white papers from ICANdecide.org They Cannot say they do not know and WE CANNOT allow our lawmakers to use CDC recommendations to push a VACCINE AGENDA until the CDC has been reformed.

STAND. WITH. ME. TO KILL THIS BILL.
I do not want MY TAX DOLLARS targeting the sick and elderly WITH LIES.

We will Rally 8-10am. The Vote is at 1:30 pm.
Take your kids out of school. Call off work. Put off the laundry. Show the Indiana General Assembly what UNITED and INFORMED citizens LOOK LIKE.#NOonHB1058👊💥👊

HHS NOTICE we provided ALL 150 Legislators with a few months ago. They ALL know this information. We’ve already told them. You can read the entire thing here: https://tinyurl.com/IFMFHHSnotice

Here’s the email our President just sent:

Honorable Representatives,

Good Morning. You will be asked to vote on HB1058 Monday 1/22/18 at 1:30 pm.

I am asking you to oppose for the following reasons.

1. The authors will have you believe that they only want to create a new law to give Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “information” to residents in residential care facilities.

My opposition comes from the knowledge of CDC corruption. You have been given an OFFICIAL NOTICE from my organization about the lack of vaccine safety. I hand delivered to the Mail room, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Notice to all 150 Indiana Lawmakers. This notice gives official notice to HHS that The People of the United States are, according to the United States Congress, permitted and STAND READY to litigate against our Federal Government if they continue to willfully fail to act, as they have since 1986. HHS was tasked with specific duties pertaining to vaccine safety in 1986 when Congress gave LIABILITY IMMUNITY to vaccine manufacturers and established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, stripping Americans of their right to due process against an industry for their products.

My organization, Indiana For Medical Freedom, signed on to that notice, representing over 2000 Indiana Families.

This HHS NOTICE was signed by hundreds of organizations, representing over TWO MILLION AMERICANS across the United States.

If you claim to have not received it, or if it has escaped your notice, here it is again:

To Be Clear; I WILL NOT PERMIT YOU TO CLAIM YOU ARE NOT AWARE, AND I RESPECTFULLY DEMAND THAT YOU READ IT BEFORE VOTING ON HB1058.

2. Now that you’re up to speed on the LACK OF VACCINE SAFETY in the United States, I ask how you can vote, in good conscience to provide CDC “information” to a susceptible population, the sick and the elderly, residing in residential care facilities WHO DESERVE YOUR PROTECTION.

I call this “information” the authors of HB1058 want to REQUIRE, BY LAW a pharmaceutical advertisement for a liability free product.

The Authors are not considering HB1058 as a vaccine mandate, but it is. It’s a mandate, by LAW, to FORCE residential care facilities to hand out information on a liability free product with a 10% efficacy rate and responsible for 56.3% of ALL COMPENSATION TO VICTIMS IN VACCINE COURT.

I put evidence from the US Department of Health and Human Services in many of your hands yesterday, 1/18/18. If I missed you, here it is:

On the same page, find “Grand Total”. Find “Court Decisions”. See 293? Write that down.

NOW DIVIDE.

56.3% SHOULD BE THE PERCENTAGE YOU GET.

56.3% OF ALL VACCINE INJURY PAYOUTS ARE FROM THE FLU SHOT.

So, the Authors want you to vote in favor of a mandate to advertise a liability free product with a 10% efficacy rate, and is responsible for more than HALF of all compensation.

I WANT YOU TO STAND WITH ME TO SAY NO.

3. I know that you want to do what is right. To do what is right, you must rely on vigilant citizens to tell you what you may not know. I know that you value fact based and properly sourced, credible information and so do I. That is why I’m giving you this link to the New England Journal of Medicine that provides information on the efficacy of this year’s flu shot. It’s 10%. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1714916

I challenge you to look at the grading scale for schools. What is a 10% grade?

FAIL.

NOW you see that you MUST OPPOSE.

Thank you in advance, most sincerely for your consideration and for voting your conscience, after doing your due diligence on this very important matter.

Updated: 1/15/18 12:50 pm

We were incorrect about the intended audience of HB 1058. The digest of the bill states “public housing assistance”, but the Fiscal Report indicates this law would target “residential care facilities”, meaning the sick and the elderly, which is WORSE! We’ve updated the letter included in this action alert. If you’ve already sent your emails, you can either re-send and let them have it, for targeting this susceptible population, or leave it as it is.

Calling All Concerned Citizens!

Please Take ACTION Today!

Tomorrow, January 16, 2018 at 1:30 pm our Indiana House of Representatives will be voting on HB 1058. This bill will provide FREE advertising for the Pharmaceutical Industry for Flu Vaccines for Indiana residents that are receiving housing assistance (Section 8).

Indiana For Medical Freedom opposes this bill for the following reasons:

This is State sanctioned FREE advertising for vaccine manufacturers, for a FOR PROFIT, LIABILITY FREE product.

The Flu Vaccine has the worst efficacy rate ( 10% Effective) of ALL vaccines available.

The Flu Vaccine is the MOST dangerous vaccine, responsible for more that HALF of all claims and compensation in Federal Vaccine “Court” for injury and death.

In NO WAY should our Indiana General Assembly seek to target a susceptible population. NO ONE should EVER receive a vaccination while sick, if they’re without their faculties and unable to make an informed decision.

Action Items

Email all 100 House Representatives TODAY! Find an easy to use “email block” here. Simply copy each block into the “to”, “cc” and “bcc” section of your email. You will need to send a second email to include the 4th block.

Download This Sample Letter For Inspiration, Or Use In Its Entirety! You can copy and paste into the body of your email (recommended) or send as an attachment. All supporting evidence is included in this letter.

Join Us Tomorrow at The Statehouse! Wear your Indiana For Medical Freedom t-shirts and bring your handmade signs! Please make sure your signs are smaller than a regular size poster board. You can cut a poster board in half to make two signs, or buy the smaller sized poster boards, usually sold in packs. Do Not put them on sticks.

Call your Representative at 317-232-9600, leave a message (closed today for MLK day) and ask them to oppose tomorrow.

To Live In a Free and Democratic Society, Vigilant Citizenry Is REQUIRED.

Indiana For Medical Freedom thanks you for your immediate attention to this matter.

After a recent scathing (originally incorrect but later corrected) article was posted by Evansville’s Courier & Press (found here) we determined that we have to get a handle on the misinformation that’s coming from our media. Just look at this screen capture from the original article!

Thimerosol in the MMR? Thimerosol, a mercury-derived preservative, has never and could never be in a live virus vaccine such as the MMR! It would kill the live virus. Any journalist that wants to jump into “the ridiculous vaccine debate” better make very sure that they fact-check to be able to compete with informed parents. A few Indiana For Medical Freedom parents took time out of their day to correct him.

The writer did correct his article and did reply to one parent and said the following:

VICTORY!!! Except his article still makes SB18 sound unnecessary and ridiculous, which it isn’t. Take a look at all of these pages of Indiana Schools coercing, threatening and bullying parents. Our activists took these to the Statehouse to lobby for the bill in question and they’re responsible for getting the bill proposed. Indiana Schools Obfuscates Indiana Law.

Indiana Schools, as it pertains to vaccination, are overseen by the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDOH). These schools are operating outside of the law by only making parents aware of the the first part of the law and not including the 2nd part of the law where exemptions are explained. This information is rarely made known to parents. Indiana For Medical Freedom, a few State Senators, and countless private citizens have made multiple attempts to contact the ISDOH, to no avail. We have been ignored by ISDOH regarding this matter and so we felt that legislation was necessary. SB18 requires schools to provide written notice at registration that parents are entitled to exemptions from vaccination. See the bill here.

For this reason, we are asking you to join us in a social media storm to call attention to rampant misinformation that’s being spread by the willfully ignorant media; media who are more concerned about advertising dollars from Pharma than they are about the health and safety of our children.

There is a story here that journalist Jon Webb is refusing to cover. Instead, he has chosen to help the ISDOH to further hide the truth of the law from confused and misinformed parents. How many of us have children who were harmed by vaccines BECAUSE we were told that vaccines are required for school, and because we didn’t know we had a choice? That’s the first thing parents who are questioning vaccines ask… “But how do I send my kids to school?” The public does not know about vaccine exemptions. We NEED Senator Charbonneau to call a hearing for this bill so that we can give our testimony and let the legislature know that PARENTS NEED INFORMED CONSENT! By joining our social media storm you can show our legislators how many people in Indiana support Informed Consent and WANT this bill. As always, please be respectful in your correspondence.

TWITTER:
Include our tinyurl link, the photo and the hashtags in your Tweet as well as tagging Senator Charbonneau.
.@SenatorCharb #SB18 #INLegis #InformedConsent tinyurl.com/INSB18

(notice the . before @SenatorCharb. This ensures everyone that follows him will see it also).

We are also asking for letters to the editor and op-eds be submitted to Evansville Courier & Press. We know it’s likely that nothing will be printed, but if you’d like to try, you can submit your pieces here. We only have 14 more meeting days before this bill dies (1/12-2/5), so we cannot count on op-eds or letters to the editor being published before then, but it’s still a worthy cause!

If you want to Tweet Jon Webb from Evansville’s Courier & Press, his Twitter Handle is .@JonAdamWebb (Don’t forget the period before the @, so all his followers will see it). We ask that you encourage him to dig deeper and don’t forget to post a photo, link a tinyurl, and include hastags #SB18 #INLegis #InformedConsent!

tinyurl.com/INSB18 will link to all 47 pages of examples of school coercion. Here is a photo you can use in your tweet to support Informed Consent in Indiana as well as draw attention to the tweets. These tweets are more likely to be effective if they include our link, a photo, consistent hashtags and the tagging of an important person. Don’t forget you can retweet what others have posted.

We have 2 important bills scheduled for hearings on Tuesday! The legislature does not meet Monday due to MLK Jr Day so please make sure you make your phone calls and send your emails ASAP today! If you must wait until the weekend to make contact that’s fine but today is better! Drop what you’re doing and take 5 minutes to reach out. These calls and emails make a HUGE difference, as we’ve already seen. SB 135 was shredded down to nothing thanks to our calls and emails and SB 128 will likely pass with full support next week! Success!!

Here is an example letter you may use/extrapolate from to write your own email and use as talking points. I found it most effective to send the email first and then call their office to let them know I’d emailed them and it was urgent so wanted to follow up to be sure they received it. This makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE in whether or not they actually read the email. Many do not otherwise because they get so many emails! You can call the House of Representatives switchboard here and ask for your legislator by name:(317) 232-9600

Good afternoon!
I’m writing to you about something I’m very concerned about as one of your constituents! I hope you weigh my concerns carefully as you head into the full House hearing on this bill on Tuesday.

3. The flu shot is THE LEAST effective of all vaccines with a 10% efficacy rate. WHY on earth would we ADVERTISE (a FOR PROFIT vaccine at taxpayer expense) a failing product for which NO ONE but taxpayers are liable for injury or death? Especially to POOR people on assistance ANYWAY? Their injuries would only cost The State more in resources because if they become TOTALLY disabled, they’ll never get off assistance and we’ll be paying for their housing, insurance and care longer, if not for the rest of their lives. Most people don’t even KNOW they can’t sue manufacturers for injury or death. Most people don’t know there’s a compensation program (at taxpayer expense) that can take a decade to adjudicate or dismissed entirely.

4. IF this BAD BILL passes, it will be the first step to mandate vaccines for anyone on any type of public assistance. I WILL NOT allow that to happen in our great state.

5. This is scheduled for 2nd reading next Tuesday 1/16/18 @1:30. We are rallying in opposition that day. I will be there. I have a question about 2nd Readings, though. Is public testimony allowed at 2nd readings, or is our only hope to kill this in the house to rally outside of the chambers and put the evidence I linked to you above in our Representatives’ hands?

I’m looking very forward to your reply on this bill. I need the information about 2nd readings as soon as possible. Please call me or reply to this email as soon as you can.

This is the bill we lobbied for! This bill requires all schools at registration to inform parents of their right to religious and medical exemptions from vaccination. Currently schools are NOT following the law by telling partial truths. They will tell parents that their children can be kicked out of school for not being up-t0-date on vaccines but do NOT tell them that they have a right to an exemption. Section 3 of The Indiana Constitution says “No law shall, in any case whatever, control the free exercise and enjoyment of religious opinions, or interfere with the rights of conscience.” http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/inconst/art-1.html#sec-3 Every citizen of the state of Indiana has the right to exempt their child from vaccines if it goes against their conscience!

Schools are operating outside the law with the full support of the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDOH). We have contacted the ISDOH, Senator Jim Tomes has contacted the ISDOH, and private citizens have contacted the ISDOH, and they are WILLFULLY refusing to act. This leads us to believe that this is how they operate and they are supporting the obfuscation. WE WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS! That is why this bill is needed and Senator Ed Charbonneau needs to know about this so he can call a hearing for this bill!

Dear Senator Charbonneau,

I am writing you today to discuss the urgency of SB 18 and why the state of Indiana NEEDS you to call this bill for a hearing. School districts are lying to parents by stating that their child will be excluded from school if their vaccines are not up to date. The need for this bill comes from the schools only telling part truths. The law says vaccines are required for school entry and just below that, in the same code, it allows for religious and medical exemptions. When schools quote the first half of the law without including the 2nd half, they are intentionally deceiving parents of their legal right to exempt their children from vaccines. What other company, never mind a government agency (public schools), would be allowed to misquote the law in order to coerce the public to achieve a desired result?

Here is a link where you can see some examples we compiled of the schools willfully deceiving parents about vaccine requirements. https://tinyurl.com/INSB18

These schools are under the direction of the Indiana State Department of Health who has refused to act after many attempts by us and by Senator Tomes to force the schools to operate within the law. It is for that reason that we can no longer trust the oversight of the ISDOH in this regard.

As you can see, this bill is absolutely needed! Schools must be held to the same standard as everyone else in our state and should not be allowed to misguide parents of their legal rights. Please call SB 18 for a hearing and demand schools follow the law by providing true informed consent to parents and constituents in this great state.

We have created a Facebook event for our Rally before the HB 1058 hearing (Influenza Information to Section 8 housing residents). You can find that event HERE. Please come join us at the rally with signs if you can so we can change the hearts and minds of the legislators as they walk in to vote!

We have another rally that same morning in Opposition of SB 294 regarding CBD oil. We support the free access to CBD oil in Indiana as all other 49 states have! SB 294 seeks to limit the use of CBD oil only to those who are on a registry and who carry a medical card. We OPPOSE this bill unless the registry component is removed and free access is given to all! You can find our Facebook event for that rally HERE.

STEP 4: Stay tuned for part 2 of this action alert to follow immediately!

We are organizing a Social Media Storm about a very important issue and will share all about it in the next post. That post will be up within the hour!

The Legislative Season is upon us and the first important Hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, January 11th, 2018 at 1pm in the Senate Chambers. It is a meeting of the Family and Children Services committee where they will hear 2 bills of importance.

This bill offers rights to foster parents who have had the chil(ren) in their care for at least a year. It disallows DCS to uproot the kids without first giving the foster parents the right to a hearing. This is in the best interest in the child. An example of when this would be important is in the case of a child removed from the parents and placed with a grandparent or aunt/uncle. We would not want for DCS to be able to move the child to a random family at their own will with no ability for the current guardian to have a say in it. If this bill passes, it would allow the family member the ability to plead their case at a hearing and the judge would not be able to remove the child unless DCS could prove that it was in the best interest of the child. Since foster parents receive payment for caring for their foster children, we definitely want to nip in the bud any further potential for DCS moving children around when it’s not necessary.

This bill requires DCS to notify a child’s school if anyone in the household gets arrested for any reason. We OPPOSE this bill because we don’t understand why schools need to know about arrests in the child’s home. What is the reason for this invasion of the child’s privacy in the school setting? What can the school even do about it? Who at the school would receive this notification and what do they intend to do with that information? The bill does not expand on this in any way. Why are ALL arrests required to be reported and not just arrests related to the case? If the child’s uncle is living with the family and gets arrested for unpaid parking tickets, the school needs to be notified? All arrests includes misdemeanors as well as felonies. Even arrests where the accused is later found to be innocent. This bill is painting with too broad of a brush and granting schools access to too much personal and private information. In addition, we don’t even know what they’re going to use this information for and we don’t know why it’s needed in the first place. Are the increased costs of maintaining this information and protecting this information worth the expense of taxpayer dollars in schools that are already under-funded? Many questions need to be answered before a bill like this should be passed. We urge you to call the legislators listed below AND send them an email to let them know that this bill is not ready to be passed without more information. Feel free to use any of the reasons mentioned here and/or any of your own in your email/phone calls.

Email Block for the committee (you can copy and paste these into the TO field of one single email to send it to them all at once):
s46@iga.in.gov, s41@iga.in.gov, s8@iga.in.gov, s24@iga.in.gov, s38@iga.in.gov, s47@iga.in.gov, s14@iga.in.gov, s25@iga.in.gov, s34@iga.in.gov

Please call/email today, Wednesday January 10th if at all possible. Calls and emails will still be helpful after today since the hearing is not until 1pm tomorrow. If you aren’t reading this until after Thursday January 11th you can comment below and we will let you know if the bill is still being heard or it if already went to a vote. If you call or email, please go ahead and comment on this post with your experience so others can see how quick and easy it is! Thank you for your support and continue to stay tuned as we get deeper into this legislative session (which ends in just 2 months on March 14th).

Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill recently stirred confusion and debate regarding the legality of concentrated hemp extract, commonly referred to as Cannabis Oil or CBD oil. Most forms of CBD oil do not contain any THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the chemical in marijuana responsible for psychoactive effects. It is unclear whether our AG and our Governor support the use of non THC containing CBD oil. Recent research supports the use of CBD oil as a nutritional supplement for those who suffer with pain, anxiety, autism, cancer, and most prominently, seizure disorders like epilepsy. Local news media report conflicting opinions between Governor Eric Holcomb and Attorney General Curtis Hill, leaving both retailers and consumers unsure of whether their favorite CBD oil product will continue to be available. Technically, CBD oil is legal in all 50 states as long as it’s derived from industrialized hemp and contains less than .3 percent THC. This will be a priority topic for the upcoming 2018 legislative session.

For Hoosiers using CBD oil regularly to control epilepsy, the current legal ambiguity is cause for serious concern.

Parents like Jade and Lelah Jerger.

On September 20, 2017 Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS) opened a file on Jade and Lelah Jerger, parents of Jaehla Jerger, 20 months, with epilepsy. Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis reported the Jergers to DCS, accusing them of medical neglect for using Charlotte’s Web CBD oil containing 2mg of THC to assist with the toddler’s myoclonic seizures, when the prescribed pharmaceutical drug Keppra failed. Despite experiencing alarming side effects from the medication, DCS demanded weekly monitoring to prove the child was still using the prescription drug and also directed the family to specific medical centers and physicians, removing all medical decision making power from Jade and Lelah Jerger. Failure to comply would result in the toddler’s removal from her parents’ care.

On September 25, 2017 Indiana For Medical Freedom issued an official statement condemning DCS for their overreach and demanded the case be closed. Indiana For Medical Freedom provided the Keppra package insert to Indiana State legislators, by request, along with three studies showing the medication was contraindicated for Jaelah’s care.

On October 2, 2017 DCS closed the Jergers’ case due to “refuted evidence.”

The Jergers’ story made national news, sparking outrage among citizens who stand for parental rights and medical freedom. Lelah Jerger is forced to dispense her CBD oil across state lines or switch to a non THC CBD oil, taking a risk that it might not be as effective on her toddler’s seizures.

As a supporter of Indiana for Medical Freedom, we implore you to contact your legislators and refute the vilification of CBD oil. Removing it from our already limited natural medical treatments strips our ability to govern our own bodies.

We also encourage our readership to research scientific studies and critically evaluate the financial interests of those who govern us. On October 10, 2017 Indiana University and Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb announced that Indiana University donated $50 Million to the State of Indiana to combat Indiana’s opiate crisis. What’s IU’s motivation for the generous donation? A simple internet search reveals that IU’s Department of Biomolecular Science has conducted studies using both synthetic CBD and natural CBD on mice. This research could imply a vested interested in destroying CBD oil in favor of their own synthetic, and more profitable and patentable, product. This places the pharmaceutical industry in the position of both opiate addiction cause AND solution; profiting on both ends of the opioid crisis. It’s widely known that the entire IU Health network, including Riley Children’s Hospital and IU School of Medicine, opposes medical marijuana, which could be a result of placing its financial interests above patient care. Currently, CBD oil is the only non-opioid treatment available for addicts. Governor Holcomb and State Senator Jim Merritt (Narcan Proponent) aren’t interested in litigation against the manufacturers of opiates like New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas and Georgia. Drug manufacturers are not held responsible for their role in opioid addiction. The drugs were originally developed to assist in end of life, last resort pain management when addiction is not an issue. Routine surgeries, chronic pain and other common ailments aren’t reason enough to prescribe addictive pain medications, but drug companies fail to educate doctors on the appropriate distribution. The five states listed above have taken legal action against the pharmaceutical manufacturers in order to help cover the costs of dealing with the opiate crisis. The question remains why Governor Holcomb did not pursue a similar solution for Indiana and instead chose to accept the $50 million from Indiana University. An examination into his financial ties to Pharma might be needed.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (article below), states with legalized medical marijuana are reporting a significant reduction in opiate overdoses. Unfortunately, it appears that the pharmaceutical lobby’s financial power (which doubles that of the mighty Oil Industry) easily overpowers taxpayer preferences.

A strong citizenry is an educated citizenry. IFMF encourages you to arm yourself with information and learn to connect the dots. With 1 in 13 children suffering from chronic health issues and 120 million Americans on prescription drugs, it’s time to demand better health care, especially the freedom to choose your preferred method of medical treatment. Parents of sick children won’t tolerate the government standing between them and healing their children.

Get involved. Contact your state representatives before the next General Assembly. For inspiration, see the letter written by Lelah Jerger below.

“Governor Eric Holcomb,

Something has to be done on an emergency session. Our current CBD law is a direct violation of our rights. We had to fight to keep our daughter in our home after being reported for using Charlotte’s Web hemp extract to treat our daughters epilepsy. You say that CPS acted appropriately but you have no idea the threats that were used if we did not comply with them. Would you want your child’s blood drawn WEEKLY to prove a drug was in her system? Would you want someone to force you to send your child to a doctor of THEIR choice? Would you want to keep your child on a medication that caused horrible side effects if a safer alternative that WORKS is available?

This is what YOUR agency came into our home with. The fear that we, not only my husband, Jaelah, and I had to endure, but also our three other children was uncalled for. We had to hold our 10 year old daughter while she cried because she feared they would take her and her brother and sisters. All because we decided to forego traditional medications.

It should be our right as parents to choose medical treatment and which doctors we take our children to. Not anyone else’s.

The Attorney General’s statement has made the fear real again. We are working on getting Jaelah on the registry because her doctor DOES agree with the treatment, but since we were threatened with removal of our daughter if we took her anywhere else but Norton’s in Kentucky, we do not have an Indiana-licensed physician yet. This is what YOUR agency did.

And what happens in the mean time? Do we stop treatment on Jaelah until she is officially on the registry? Do we let her continue to have seizures because legally we can’t give her her treatment? The treatment her doctor agrees with. What would you do if this was your child????

The current law has forced us to divide our family over the Thanksgiving holiday because I had to go somewhere that I could legally give Jaelah her treatment. While you were comfortable in your home surrounded by your family, mine was torn apart.

This is America, the land of the free. However, we aren’t free. We aren’t free to make any decisions on our own without fear of government involvement. This is what our state has become. It does NOT work.

What are you going to do about it?”

Indiana For Medical Freedom stands with The Jergers and ALL families negatively affected by this issue and we respectfully request that you immediately address this issue in a manner that benefits citizens; not the pharmaceutical lobby, not Indiana University, not IU School of Medicine, and not Riley Hospital.